Dining review: Piatti shines when it sticks to its Italian roots

Ever been handed the keys to a Maserati? Me neither. From the patio at Mill Valley's Piatti, you can gaze longingly at a number of upmarket, imported automobiles from the next-door dealership or cast your eyes on the stunning view of the bay's Pickleweed Inlet and Mount Tamalpais. Indoors, tall windows seem to attract the sun; equally tall shades deflect the rays and cast the room in bright, radiant light. The modern, rectangular main dining room features a bar at one end. Here, the tanned and precisely coiffed rub elbows with khaki-slacked professionals and an occasional family group. Surely, the valet has taken the wheel of at least one Ferrari tonight.

Piatti, part of the Moana Hospitality Group, which has properties throughout the west as well as Mexico, feels urbane, corporate. To localize the Piatti experience in Marin, servers are taught to make a connection with each table.

The effort helps. Quarterly menus, designed to change with the seasons and updated with the day's ingredients, help, too.

Executive chef Sebastian Lowrey, who took over after chef Todd Shoberg left to start his own restaurant, Molina, developed the market menus and they bear his stamp.

"He is French at his core," says Zahra, which explains the beurre blanc sauce on the otherwise rather American dish of bacon- and sage-wrapped jumbo prawns with potato puree ($18). Grouper with a Marcona almond crust ($27), too, arrived napped in the buttery sauce, a dish inspired by Lowrey's recent trip to New Orleans. Baby lettuces with white peaches ($14) was dressed in red wine vinaigrette but sat at the pass too long and arrived at the table soggy and past its prime.

Lowrey's every day menu holds more closely to the Italian-with-American-accents cannon of olive oil, tomato and Parmesan with updated accents. Fennel sausage pizza ($11 to $16), seared in the almond and oak-fired brick oven, sports marinated grape tomatoes and wild oregano, or try the spaghetti with pork-ricotta meatballs in a tomato sugo ($12 or $18). The oven-roasted tomato Caprese salad ($14), a basil leaf decorously draped over the tomato's exposed core, looked and tasted in tune with the restaurant's billing of rustic Italian cuisine.

Fresh basil-lime pesto and just-firm burrata worked effortlessly together. Nice. Fettuccine with garlic prawns ($13 or $19), also benefited from a simple sauce of crushed tomato, chili and oregano. Better. Linguine ($12 or $18), cooked just to al dente, was dressed simply with white wine, olive oil, garlic and a bit of Calabrian chili yet it made a lush, savory sauce that highlighted the fresh brininess of the large Manila clams. Best.

The wine menu is roughly divided between Californian and Italian bottlings. There are a few tap, or barrel-to-table wines, such as the Forenzo Estate Pinot Grigio from Mendocino ($8,$18 or $36). Piatti serves its own private-label wines; a non-vintage California chardonnay, merlot and cabernet sauvignon, all $6.50 a glass or $26 a bottle. There are 10 bottled beers ($5.50) and four on tap ($7), including Peroni lager and Trumer pilsner.

The Lamborghini swagger on display outside of Piatti entertains and intrigues those who are susceptible to the charms of Italian design and high-power horses. At the restaurant, the charm lies in the Italian-American hybrid cooking from Lowrey. This is a chef who remembers that northern Italy borders France. This is a chef who is not afraid of butter. But Piatti is at its best when it remembers its Italian roots. As ever, less is more.

Christina Mueller writes about food — restaurants, chefs, products and trends — for local and national publications as well as other industry clients. Send her an email at ij@christinamueller.com.